Tips, Comments, Complaints, Etc

Nina’s introduction is always just as good as Bernie’s speech. If you skip over it in the above video, I encourage you to give it a watch!

Spreading ‘Like Wildfire’: Majority of Americans—Including 74% of Democrats—Now Support Single-Payer

“Five years ago, could you have believed that half of Americans would agree we need a single-payer healthcare system?”

That’s how Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—a longtime advocate of guaranteeing healthcare for all Americans—responded to a new poll that found that 74 percent of Democrats and 51 percent of all adults surveyed support implementing a single-payer healthcare system in the United States.

“When people see the justice of an idea, it spreads like wildfire,” Sanders tweeted Thursday morning. “The American people know that healthcare should be a right.”

The Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) poll asked: “Do you support or oppose having a national health plan—or a single-payer plan—in which all Americans would get their insurance from a single government plan?” More than half said they support it:

The results align with other polls conducted within the past year. In September, as Common Dreams reported, 49 percent of all voters and two-thirds of Democrats surveyed by Politico/Morning Consult said they supported “a single-payer healthcare system.” A KFF poll from July found that 53 percent of Americans somewhat or strongly favor a single-payer plan.

The growing public support for a single-payer system has coincided with action in Congress. Backed by medical professionals, activists, business leaders, and a “groundbreaking ” number of Democratic senators, last September Sanders introduced a Medicare for All bill that would transition the nation’s current for-profit healthcare system toward a single-payer one.

Ahead of the 2018 midterm election and amid mounting demands from the American public that federal lawmakers sign on to Sanders’s bill, studies and political analysts are finding that support for Medicare for All is a politically viable and increasingly popular stance among candidates.

Spotlight: Senator Bernie Sanders and American Politics

During the 2016 presidential election, a lot of buzz circled around Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who held a large fan base of millennials. Many people, including the news media, claim Senator Sanders is ‘redefining’ American politics.

Bernie Sanders is well known for his democratic and socialist beliefs. What many do not know, though, is that Senator Sanders is registered as an Independent, so he sponsors and co-sponsors several bipartisan bills. Many of these bills regard important foreign relations and assistance because part of Senator Sander’s campaign is compassion for others and human rights.

Senator Sanders co-sponsored the following three bills which have been introduced into legislation, and that exemplify his concern for foreign assistance and human rights on a global scale.

I’ve never been to/heard of this website/magazine but giving it a glance it looks like it could be of interest to some of you.

Sanders slams Trump’s proposal to rejoin Trans-Pacific Partnership

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) issued the following statement Thursday after President Donald Trump said Thursday morning that he was directing his advisers to look into rejoining the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a deal he pulled out of immediately after becoming president:

“In a series of broken promises President Trump made to the working people of this country, rejoining the job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership would be the biggest yet.

“Joining the TPP would not bring back one American job that has been outsourced to China. Instead, it would force more American workers to compete with desperate workers in Vietnam who make 65 cents an hour and migrant computer workers in Malaysia who are working as modern day slaves. It is bad enough to force U.S. workers to compete with low-wage labor; they should not be forced to compete with no-wage labor.

“Trump talks tough on trade, but the reality is that since he has been president our trade deficits with China and Mexico have gone up by more than $35 billion. The Trump Administration is still providing multi-billion dollar federal contracts to some of the largest outsourcers in America. And Trump’s tax plan is giving a massive tax break to companies that ship jobs overseas.

“We need to fundamentally rewrite our trade policies to benefit American workers, not just the CEOs of large, multi-national corporations. Rejoining the TPP would be a betrayal of American workers, and a step in the wrong direction.”

12 U.S. senators seek FCC probe of Sinclair news scripts, pause in Tribune review

Twelve U.S. senators on Thursday asked the Federal Communications Commission to investigate Sinclair Broadcasting Group for “deliberately distorting news” and asked the commission to pause its ongoing review of the company’s proposed $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune Media Co.

Sinclair, which is already the largest U.S. broadcast station owner, announced plans in May 2017 to acquire Tribune’s 42 TV stations in 33 markets, extending its reach to 72 percent of American households.

In a letter, the senators, 11 Democrats and independent Bernie Sanders, expressed concern about local news anchors at Sinclair-owned stations around the country being forced to read company-mandated scripts. The scripts criticized “the troubling trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories plaguing our country” and have drawn fire.

“We are concerned that Sinclair is engaged in a systematic news distortion operation that seeks to undermine freedom of the press and the robust localism and diversity of viewpoint that is the foundation of our national broadcasting laws,” the senators wrote. They added that it “may have violated the FCC’s longstanding policy against broadcast licensees deliberately distorting news by staging, slanting, or falsifying information.”

Democrats get tips on selling progressive points in conservative areas

Rep. Paul Gosar, D-Prescott, has never won less than 66 percent of the vote in Arizona’s 4th District, but that doesn’t mean potential challenger David Brill plans to back down from his Democratic principles.

“We all want to see backbone,” said Brill, who is running in the Democratic primary in the 4th District. “Whether you agree on every value or every issue, of course not … but, yes, you want to see backbone.”

Brill was one of more than 400 candidates in Washington for Progressive Change Campaign Committee training on how to sell a progressive message to the voters in conservative districts.

The mantra of the day was “any blue just won’t do” and the event – which boasted speakers like Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts – said the path for Democratic victory in conservative districts is to embrace progressive values and positions, not hide from them.

Cathy Myers — IronStache’s Democratic challenger in Paul Ryan’s district — makes the case for why she can win

In the race for House Speaker Paul Ryan’s seat in Wisconsin’s First Congressional District, one Democratic candidate has gotten a lot of national attention. But there’s another Democrat in the race: Cathy Myers, though lower profile, is running a serious campaign.

Myers is a school board member and part-time teacher from Ryan’s hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin. She’s running a tough race against fellow Democratic candidate Randy Bryce, the ironworker and union organizer who goes by “IronStache.”

Bryce has taken up most of the political oxygen in the Democratic race so far; he received an early round of endorsements from Bernie Sanders and other progressive groups, and national Democrats followed — the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently added Bryce to its “red to blue” list. And he’s fundraised millions so far, putting him in a good position to take over whichever Republican emerges from the primary to replace Ryan, who announced Wednesday that he’s retiring at the end of his term.

But Myers is undeterred.

“I feel my chances are good,” she told me as she drove to Milwaukee after finishing a day of teaching. “My goodness, I went up against Paul Ryan with a guy that had $10 to $11 million sitting in the bank; he could write a check for it at any given time. That didn’t faze me, so why should any of Randy’s fundraising faze me?”

The fact that Ryan is leaving the race could pose a new opportunity for Myers. Bryce has spent much of the campaign attacking Ryan as the leader of the GOP’s efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and pass massive tax cuts. With Ryan retiring and Republicans scrambling to replace him, it could give Myers more of a chance to get her own message out.

What you need to know about Beto O’Rourke

Although Beto O’Rourke has served in Congress since 2012, few people outside of his hometown of El Paso knew who he was before he decided to challenge U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz last year.

Since then, the Democrat has been visiting every corner of the state to campaign. He’s working to visit all 254 counties in Texas, and is on his way to visiting almost as many Whataburger restaurants, his fast food joint of choice while he’s on the road.

He’s hoping to become the first Democrat to win a statewide election in Texas since 1994, when Bob Bullock was re-elected as lieutenant governor, and has shared his entire journey with followers on Facebook, using the social media company’s live video service. It lets him host town halls on the road or share moments from behind the scenes of his campaign.

His unconventional style has made waves and he says it helps him connect with voters on a personal level. He hasn’t hired a political consultant or a pollster and he doesn’t accept money from political action committees.
There’s still a lot you probably don’t know about O’Rourke. Here’s a look at his political background, dietary preferences and stance on key issues.

The Arizona Supreme Court recently took away in-state tuition for DACA students, so young people like Fernando are struggling to figure out how to stay in school. This should not be happening in the United States of America. pic.twitter.com/rhDjY4F7G8

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) April 12, 2018

It’s outrageous that the FBI is reportedly surveilling people they call "Black Identity Extremists." It's a disgraceful continuation of the FBI's history of spying on activists, especially people of color, fighting for social, racial and economic justice. https://t.co/LEG902UdeA

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) April 12, 2018

For months, calls to shut down Line 5 were ignored. Now that disaster is close, Lansing is waking up. We can’t live in a world where a ship anchor decides the future of our Great Lakes. Clean water should be our priority from the start. #ShutDownLine5 https://t.co/W6Oga9bp32

— Dr. Abdul El-Sayed (@AbdulElSayed) April 12, 2018

Checking in with the 2018 gubernatorial candidates: Abdul El-Sayed (18 min. audio @ link)

This week, Stateside is interviewing the Democratic candidates for governor ahead of their party’s 2018 State Endorsement Convention. The gubernatorial candidates will face off in the August primaries.

Abdul El-Sayed is the former director of the Detroit Health Department. His campaign has been a little bumpy – late last month, he asked a court to rule if he’s eligible to run after some elections law experts claimed he might not be.

He sat down with Stateside’s Cynthia Canty to discuss his experiences at the Detroit Health Department and his stance on a variety of issues.

Mike Duggan blasts Abdul El-Sayed for accusing him of ‘poisoning kids’

The feud exploded on Wednesday, when El-Sayed went on Michigan Radio and said Duggan ignored his warnings to mitigate the health risks of city housing demolitions and water shutoffs.

“He didn’t want to pay attention to the fact that Detroit’s demolitions program is poisoning kids with lead up until this year,” El-Sayed told Michigan Radio.

Duggan endorsed Whitmer last month after working with union leaders to recruit another candidate into the race. This week, the mayor’s office released a batch of emails El-Sayed wrote to demolitions officials while he was at the city that the mayor’s aides claim refutes the doctor’s assertions.

“It’s clear Abdul has completed his transition from man of science to politician because he’s willing to say anything to get himself elected,” Duggan spokesman John Roach told Bridge Magazine.

Bridge received the emails – more than 250 pages in all – after reporting on the demolition issue last fall. Bridge secured the communications through the Freedom of Information Act after previous reporting on studies showing a link between elevated blood lead levels among Detroit children and increased housing demolitions.

No one disputes that, while he was at the city, El-Sayed initiated a study that found the link and launched a task force to address the problem. But he and Duggan disagree on whether City Hall resisted El-Sayed’s efforts.

Under El-Sayed, the task force made 18 recommendations on how to reduce the health risk, many of which languished for months until last fall when the city rolled out a text messaging service to alert nearby residents of upcoming demolitions to stay inside.